At high noon on March 22, 1845, plantation owner Phillipe Toca and his adversary Gilbert Leonard faced off in a duel on a plot of land in what is now St. Bernard Parish. Standing 50 yards apart, both men fired their pistols, but only Toca's shot landed, killing Leonard on the spot.

The duel may have marked the first of many bloodspills involving the Toca pet cemetery property's once and future owners, as well as those intangibly associated with what is now an overgrown, bayou-side graveyard and the axis of a recently exhumed 27-year-old murder investigation. The probe has opened a crack in an ageless odyssey of killings, betrayal, buried treasure and intrigue, all tied to a 14-acre tract in tiny Toca, Louisiana.

Today, the property consists of a derelict but once classic Edwardian manor encircled by overgrown animal tombstones on the right bank of Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs, just below Poydras in rural St. Bernard Parish, about four miles from the Mississippi River.

Last month, authorities claimed to have solved the most recent crime on this killing field of south Louisiana when the St. Bernard Sheriff's Office booked Brandon Nodier, a former groundskeeper at the cemetery, with the 1985 murder of Dorothy Thompson, an heiress whose own legacy is splattered with bloodshed. But many intrigues, such as the whereabouts of a missing half million dollar fortune, perhaps will linger forever, lost with those now dead and gone.

Historic court records, police reports, newspaper clippings, biographies, interviews, marriage, divorce and death records reveal a bizarre history of the pet cemetery that for three decades attracted animal lovers from throughout the South.

A scorned lover, a hidden fortune

Although she is remembered locally by her maiden name, and referenced as such by St. Bernard authorities to this day, Dorothy Lou Thompson Banks Robinson's full name speaks volumes. She signed it that way on court documents in 1985, a few months before her death.

Her story begins in 1913 when her mother, Grace Agnes Matt, then 22, married John "Jack" Thompson in Kansas City, Mo. The marriage ended after six years, when Grace Thompson divorced Jack Thompson in 1919 to run off to Oklahoma City to marry her new lover, Arthur Wynne.

In 1924, Grace Wynne gave birth to a daughter, Dorothy. Allegedly Arthur Wynne's child, Dorothy nonetheless called Jack Thompson "Daddy Jack" and, at least as an adult, took his last name.

Jack Thompson, despite having remarried himself, to Mary L. Thompson, had continued seeing Grace Wynne in Oklahoma City. In 1931, Grace Wynne divorced Arthur Wynne and returned to Kansas City, where Jack Thompson had become "an influential politician, a successful operator of slot machines and a man of considerable means," according to later court testimony.

Thompson allegedly had become a top cog in the political machine of Tom Pendergast, the mafia-connected "Boss Tom" of Kansas City, who rigged elections, paid off police, arranged prostitutes, ran Prohibition-era alcohol and controlled gambling houses throughout the city.

After meeting Grace Wynne at the train station in Kansas City, Jack Thompson put her up in the ritzy Pickwick Hotel, where he lavished her with gifts.

In 1934, Grace Wynne would leave that hotel for good and start down the path that eventually led her to Toca. Wanting Jack Thompson to herself, she lay in wait at Thompson's home one night, emerging from the shadows to shoot Mary Thompson five times with a .25-caliber pistol as Mary and Jack Thompson arrived home from a vacation.

One witness later testified in court that Grace Wynne was calm after the murder. "You don't have to hold me," she told people at the scene. "I am not going to run away. It is all fixed. They won't do anything to me."

Seemingly with Thompson's influence, Grace Wynne was ruled insane and instead of being tried on the murder charge, was committed to an asylum in St. Joseph, Mo.

Hiding in the Crescent City

After about six months in the asylum, and with doctors there allegedly ready to rule that she was fit for trial, Grace Wynne was allowed a leave of absence to visit her mother in a St. Joseph hotel. She instead fled to New Orleans with her mother, Emma Matt, and 11-year-old Dorothy.

On Dec. 3, 1935, Jack Thompson, 43, arrived in New Orleans, apparently to see his former wife. He died that night in the Jung Hotel. It was ruled a heart attack, although many thought it suspicious.

Denying that she had any contact with Jack Thompson that night, Grace Wynne claimed that her former husband was killed for his "hidden fortune" of $400,000 to $500,000, a gambling fortune that allegedly was never found.

The next day, Kansas City authorities asked New Orleans police and the public "to be on the lookout for Mrs. Grace Wynne" and offered a reward for information. But they must not have looked very hard, as Grace Wynne hardly had gone into deep cover.

Going by the last name Thompson, she opened the Cottage Flower Shop at 4609 Freret St., and became an organist at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, where she composed a number of hymns.

The hymns would prove her undoing: In 1940, a Kansas City policewoman tracked her down by tracing a 1939 hymn book that Wynne published, said to be used by church organists throughout the world.

Grace Wynne was extradited to Kansas City and in 1942 was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

But she would never serve out the sentence.

In 1944, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered a new trial on an evidentiary technicality. Out on bond until the trial, Grace Wynne again fled to New Orleans, where once again authorities caught up to her.

During an extradition hearing in 1945 in front of Louisiana Gov. Jimmie H. Davis, Wynne and her two attorneys again alleged that enemies of the corrupt Kansas City political machine were pushing her return to Kansas City because they wanted Jack Thompson's fortune.

By 1946, Grace Wynne and Dorothy, then 21, had moved to the Toca Plantation, then little more than an abandoned sugar cane field with a large sturdy, high-ceilinged house in its center. Dorothy later recalled that her mother "had the idea of a pet cemetery in the back of her mind ever since a dog of which she was very fond died in Kansas City -- and there was no place of burial there."

For the next decade or so, federal authorities in Kansas City occasionally talked about bringing Wynne back for trial, but nothing ever came of it. And by 1952, the pet cemetery was running on full steam.

A pet cemetery world

The pet cemetery became famous because of its quirky nature. At one point, it also acted as a boarding house for live pets, including monkeys.

View full sizeThe Times-Picayune archiveDorothy Thompson at her pet cemetery in St. Bernard in January 1981. In the background is Brandon Nodier, who recently turned himself in, in connection with her 1985 murder.

It was estimated that about 5,000 pets were buried on its grounds, mostly dogs and cats, but also parakeets, parrots, myna birds, a cheetah, a hen, monkeys, rabbits -- even the boa constrictor named Serita who had performed on "The Tonight Show" in the 1960s and was afforded a funeral with a choir that sang "Goodnight, Irene."

Graves ranged from simple to very elaborate, costing as much as $2,000. A human-sized Buddhist statue topped one of a pet cat, and one woman's ashes were cemented in a large urn atop her dead dog's tombstone, as per her last wishes.

Referred to both as the E.E. Matt Pet Cemetery and the Azalea Original Pet Cemetery, 12-foot azaleas grew alongside its tombstones, as did reams of exotic tropical plantings from around the world.

But the tranquility of the cemetery oasis was rocked on Nov. 26, 1970, when Dorothy fatally shot her husband, Logan Banks, 41. He was killed after a "domestic squabble" in the rear of the pet cemetery, according to the police report.

Dorothy and her mother claimed Banks was intoxicated and threatened to kill them with a large knife. St. Bernard sheriff's officials determined the killing was in self defense.

In 1976, Dorothy Banks married Donald Eugene Robinson, a caretaker on the property. Less than two years later, Donald Robinson, 46, was fatally shot on the grounds. Dorothy Robinson called police and told them she had found him dead. No charges were filed.

Grace Wynne died a year later of natural causes at age 88.

A few months after Wynne's death, handyman Brandon Nodier, then 26, was hired by Dorothy Robinson to do home repairs and stayed on as a live-in caretaker. Nodier told a Times-Picayune reporter in 1981 that before he came to the cemetery that he'd had a dream about living in a cemetery -- "I just have some strange feelings about the whole thing," he said.

Pat Newman, who began a friendship with Dorothy Robinson in 1980 and later became executor of her estate, said that after her mother's death Robinson fell into a stupor and never recovered. On Dec, 1, 1981, Dorothy Thompson inexplicably signed over to Nodier, through his company Brandon's Renovations Inc., a 99-year lease for the cemetery for the paltry sum of $20 a month.

A few months before her death in 1985, she admitted in court papers to having "a substance abuse dependency."

Nodier was known by those around Toca at that time, and also by those who knew him in later years, as a swindler or con artist. Stories abound about him trying to milk money out of people in vulnerable states, according to Louis Delise Sr., 57, who lived across the street from Nodier in Arabi in recent years, and Robert Graf, who lived across the street from the pet cemetery while Nodier was working there.

On April 20, 1984, Thompson signed away the cemetery to Brandon and Bonnie Nodier, who were divorced but often living together, for $20,000, according to the civil suit. Whether a $20,000 check ever was handed over is unclear. It was never cashed, nor found by authorities.

Thompson filed suit in November 1984 alleging she was hoodwinked into signing the sale papers. After the filing, Newman said power to the Thompson home was cut several times, and she believed Nodier was responsible.

The civil suit was scheduled for a pretrial conference on April 26, 1985, but Thompson disappeared on April 13. Her body was found May 2 in the Mississippi River near Myrtle Grove, wrapped in heavy steel chains with a plastic bag tied with wire around her head.

Investigators determined she was killed in the cemetery's central house and dumped in the river.

The case remained cold until last month, when now-cooperative witnesses came forward, some complaining about nightmares and seeing Thompson's ghost, authorities said.

Newman, who has tried to sell the cemetery property on and off in the last quarter century, said landscapers have declined to work the property, fearing the now-hidden tombstones would kill their lawn mowers or that Hurricane Katrina may have opened up graves, creating treacherous pits.

The land has been a haunt for pilferers, stealing family valuables after Thompson's death. In the ensuing 27 years, police were often called to the site to shoo away delinquents, intrigued by the property's mysteries.

Rumors always had circulated that Grace Wynne once buried a hidden fortune there. So as the house and grounds allowed weeds and brush to swallow it, treasure seekers often would trespass with metal detectors and shovels in hand, looking for Daddy Jack's bounty.